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The Rise and Fall of Wave-Particle Duality

Alan M. Kadin

Published Dec 1, 2012• 4 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

A retrospective is presented of the rise and fall of Wave-Particle Duality as the central doctrine of quantum mechanics, from the viewpoint of the 2024 centennial of the matter wave. This is contrasted with the recent New Quantum Paradigm, in which there are no point particles or entangled probability waves, and classical trajectories follow directly from coherent quantum dynamics.

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A retrospective is presented of the rise and fall of Wave-Particle Duality as the central doctrine of quantum mechanics, from the viewpoint of the 2024 centennial of the matter wave. This is contrasted with the recent New Quantum Paradigm, in which there are no point particles or entangled probability waves, and classical trajectories follow directly from coherent quantum dynamics.
The Bohr-Heisenberg doctrine of wave-particle duality has been attacked in the past for its methodical defects, over-complication, internal contradictions, its positivistic phenomenalism, etc. The present investigation shows that duality, the doctrine of equivalence of the particle picture and the wave picture of matter, is untenable since its wave part leads to empirically wrong results in the relativistic domain, and violates the postulate of independence of the arbitrary choice of reference system in the non-relativistic realm. Therefore, when methodical objections were never quite conclusive, the physical failure of the duality idea seals its fate irrefutably, together with all its pseudo-philosophical implications.
Within the framework of quantum mechanics, the wave function squared describes the probability density of particles. In this article, another description of the wave function is given which embeds quantum mechanics into the traditional fields of physics, thus making new interpretations dispensable. The new concept is based on the idea that each microscopic particle with non-vanishing rest mass is accompanied by a matter wave, which is formed by adjusting the phases of the vacuum fluctuations in the vicinity of the vibrating particle. The vibrations of the particle and wave are phase-coupled. Particles move on continuous approximately classical trajectories. By the phase coupling mechanism, the particle transfers the information on its kinematics and thus also on the external potential to the wave. The space dependence of the escorting wave turns out to be equal to the wave function. The new concept fundamentally differs from the pilot wave concept of Bohmian mechanics.
Field-Theoretic Explanation of Wave-Particle Duality—Unification of Particle Locality and the Wave Nature of the Perturbation Field This paper provides a physical explanation of the most central puzzle in quantum mechanics—wave-particle duality—without relying on "probability-amplitude collapse" or "nonlocal entanglement." This theory divides all matter in the universe into Nie-matter entities (massive, Staticity) and Ji-matter entities (massless, Dynamicity), and maintains that quantum objects (electrons, neutrons, etc.) are always localized Nie-matter entity particles. Their "wave behavior" originates from the particle's local perturbation of the Ji-matter field that already fills space during motion—the perturbation propagates in the form of a wave, produces an interference field when passing through the double slits, and the interference field in turn guides the particle's landing position. The particle always passes through only one slit, while the field passes through both slits simultaneously; interference is the behavior of the field, not the behavior of the particle. This mechanism naturally explains double-slit interference, the coexistence of neutron collisions and wave behavior, the disturbance of interference fringes by observation devices, and the variation of interference contrast with source offset and slit spacing. This paper further gives three falsifiable predictions: P6-1 (a decisive distinction between device field-strength disturbance and which-path information disturbance), P6-2A (the disturbance effect varies continuously with field strength), and P6-2B (an argument for the explanatory power of double-slit interference contrast—naturally derived from one mechanism vs. jointly explained by four independent concepts). Compared with mainstream theory, this theory does not need "wavefunction collapse," does not need "nonlocality," and does not need "many worlds"—it only needs to acknowledge: particles are localized, the field fills space, and the motion of particles is guided by the local field gradient.
The development of the quantum theory has been on -going for many years.The wave -particle duality has been and is central to debates among physicists, in their endeavor to understand and bring more insight about the quantum theory.In this paper attempts by physicists to clarify the wave -particle duality are discussed.The wave or particle or both state of matter is analyzed, followed by discussion on the criticisms on de Broglie equation.Lastly, the paper concludes that debates on the wave -particle duality will continue since there is no consensus yet among physicists, and that experimental evidence should be given to substantiate claims.
The wave-particle duality is one of the most mysterious phenomena of the quantum theory, in this paper first it's studied the rise of the wave properties of matter from the theory of stochastic electrodynamics (SED), in which de Broglie's idea of a guiding wave that follows the particle and determine its trajectory is taken back. In the frame of the theory (SED) this wave is of electromagnetic character and is a traveling wave that propagates within the zero point field (ZPF) which according the SED is a classic electromagnetic field that permeates all universe. The wave rise from the interaction between the background field and the particle that moves with certain velocity. Then, I expose the results of numerical simulations in which the behavior of the ZPF in a two slit diffraction experiment is calculated and a series of macroscopic experiments that shows behaviors similar to the ones described by the SED. Both, simulations and experiments give us a better physical understanding of the guiding wave and of the wave properties of quantum particles
The notion of wave–particle duality remains one of the most debated subjects in the history of quantum physics. The most famous debate on the subject occurred between Bohr and Einstein. In this work, we revisit the wave–particle duality in the Bohr–Einstein debate from the viewpoint of the recently established duality-entanglement relation. We show that the duality-entanglement relation can provide a valuable framework for quantitative analysis of the Einstein's gedanken double-slit experiment and clarify some of its fundamental aspects.